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ColinWright
136,194karma·18,658submissions·December 14, 2009
about
If you want to contact me, find me on the web. I am
especially interested in math, juggling, programming,
and education, and since there are other people with
my name you'll probably need to include at least one
of those terms in any search.
I was once a prolific contributor and commenter, but no more. I go through bouts of submitting stuff, but then go and disappear for lengths of time. If there is something you'd like me to see or comment on, you can email me. Don't ask me to upvote things. If it is interesting (to me) then I will.
Submissions do not imply endorsement.
My spam filtering is pretty severe, but I've put the word "Dysprosium" on the allow-list - quote that and your email will get through.
I used to have an email here but it got harvested by spammers - I'm looking at you, mbientlab.com - so it has been removed. This is a temporary one:
HN_a7dab8S4@solipsys.co.uk
Email sent there and quoting the element name will pass my spam filters. After that we can use "proper" email addresses.
recent activity (18,658 total)
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There is a time and place for everything, so we are told. personally, I believe that HN is not the place for this. And if HN is now the place for this, then perhaps HN's time has now passed. Other pe…
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Ah, now I see the point. In the UK I believe it's possible to agree a salary/payment at an amount of recognized currency, such as GBP or USD, and then you perform all your tax and related calculations…
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If you don't, then people who mis-typed their address won't know. If your splash says "We've sent an email to confirm your registration - feel free to ignore it" then it gives people a chance to say …
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Someone who has bitcoins and employs you, then transfers an agreed number of bitcoins to you in recompense. That seems obvious, so I'm sure I must have mis-understood, or not understood, your question…
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I have no idea what this is about. Can someone enlighten me? And before you ask, yes, I know what event driven programming is, and how to tie callbacks to actions. I've written large (>1M proce…
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You can't. Why would you want to? Just start a new account.
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Pretty much nothing works if it's done badly. many things work if they're done well. I claim that when done well, exercising skills by hand that can be done by the computer yields insight in some …
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It's not the arithmetic you're trying to get insight into - it's the structures. I have a feeling I'm never going to be able to convey what I'm trying to because you're not a mathematician, and I'm no…
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It seems that you did a lot of problems, and gained no insights. Perhaps you were never intended or destined to be a mathematician. This is no insult - I genuinely believe that different people thin…
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As both a PhD in math and a working programmer who started with machine code (not even assembly language) and now programs primarily in Python and C, I think the analogy you make is incorrect. I don't…
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> The argument though is that it is simply impossible to
> use a calculator effectively without first understanding
> the basics.
I don't think that's the case. I think …
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Further discussion in a duplicate submission a week later: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601347
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Simple, on-line payments - like PayPal - but without a central agency that charges fees and can freeze your funds with no recourse. It's like cash, but over the internet. There are problems. Not every…
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You must mean http://searchyc.com - yes, it's down, and has been for a while, and many of us would appreciate some news.
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Indeed, from the guidelines: If you submit a link to a video or pdf,
please warn us by appending [video] or
[pdf] to the title.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html …
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But that's not an on-line solution. I have half a dozen desktop solutions. I don't (yet) use R, although it's on my "To Do" list for my Copious Free Time(tm)
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Bad link - it's to the blog, and what's on top will change as more things are posted. Here's a perma-link: http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/How_Ill_manage_my_next_fou... Having said that, it's an …
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I used it to create the graphs and compute the solutions for my recent blog post: http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/AnOddityInTennis.html?HN I found it really useful to have a facility on-line that let …